FGS, Bath does not NEED yet another development of houses costing 300k and more!!!!

[IntergalacticWarlock]

We need AFFORDABLE housing!!!!!

Hardly anybody my age can afford a property here. It pisses me off. I know it's the smae everywhere.

We are desperate to move house, because where we liove now is a shithole. Th area is perfect, but the house itself is in a disgusting stae of disrepair, and the landord is as tight as a gnat's chuff and woun't cough up for any repairs (last winter we were left with no hot water for 7 weeks, despite me threatening everey single day to take him to court/withold rent/use physical violence)

DP and I had a chat on the way home from yeahinaminutes this mnorning about how we could move house soon, because I have just strated working again, and financially we are a heck of a lot more secure than this time 6 months ago.

So, off I toddle to the computer to have a shufty at whats available to buy and rent around here. Even renting we are looking at another £200-300 a month, which we can't afford without starving, so it looks like we are stuck here. I wish I hadn't bothered looking tbh, because it was tres depressing. And I know I am not alone in this situation.

It pisses me off that DP and I actually earn a decent whack between us, but we have to pout up with poor quality housing. For the same rent we are paying now (750pcm) we could get a nice flat (one bed, no garden. Not with 2 kids) or a shitheap somewhere horrid.

I need to win the lottery.

It's nbot that things are grim particularly, but I just get frustrated with all the moneyt I pay out in rent for little return (ie landlord not doing repairs for weeks on end) We are trying to save a deposit to move house, but there's always other stuff to spend it on. Our worry with changing jobs is that dp wouldn't get what he does now elsewhere, and we really cannot think of reducing or income at the mo (maybe when both boys at school. and I am not paying out 8.25 an hour for a CM!)

I just find it depressing when I see yet another decelopment oif overpriced executive homes that your common or garden Bathonian will never afford

IW, I feel your pain.

We are lucky enough to have a 2 bed-flat, but as far as I can see will never get a 3rd bedroom, or a garden.

We live in London, and each earn what I think is the av. national wage (although mine's now half that as I'm part-time). We have looked at relocating, but there are so many extra costs - we'd each need a car, whereas we don't have one right now, we'd lose about 12k pa in London weighting and market forces supplements - that it doesn't seem worth it for all the upheaval.

Our numbers better come up soon, too!

Thing is, is that we don;t earn bad money, we can get by (just) every month, etc etc et, and things are improving for uds now I am working again, but there are millions of people who earn far less than we do, how do they manage? I think of those who are about 21 or the like, who might be considering moving out of home, not all of the,m are going to be high earners, many of them will be working for min wage. How will they verey afford to move out? Even a crapola badsit or a room in a shared house costs 300 squids here, which would be a huge chunk out of someone's wages.

I guess lots of those people might have families who can help. My folks are long gone though, and DH's aren't so well-off, but DH's friends' parents all coughed up healthy deposits to help their children buy homes. Most of these people aren't squillionaires, just regular folk who made a packet on their own homes .

The problem with the moving argument is... eactly what we did (so I can walk to Uni as my eyes arent going to be driver suitable for ever), but DH's wages are higher here as someone who works in bristol- which means that we pay a rent that effectivly pushes the lower paid Welsh community (equivalent job in Barry = 3K less per annum) out..... thereby dispalcing more famillies nd people. As a family we've brought much needed school aged childrene tc to thsi area, but I am wella ware there is a balancing factor whereby famillies born ehre can no longer afford to live here which is no less sad than me being unable to live in Somerset is it?

good point peachy

IGW, house prices will go down, mark my words. My mum LOST money on a 1 bed flat in New King St in central Bath in the last crash, unthinkable now but I remember it. So in your position I'd improve my credit rating as much as possible, save as much cash as possible, be as happy and pos and sit tight waiting for trhe buyer's market. It might not happen but I'm hoping so

Did anyone see Germaine Greer in the Guardian I think on Monday or Saturday? She mentioned when she was first in a position to think about buying a place in 1971, she bought a five-storey place in North Kensington that needed renovation - imagine a single first-home buyer starting there these days!

Stupid house prices were the reason that I took my three university degrees, my socially useful job and my penchant for obeying the law and left Britain for Hong Kong. I had a fight with my boss when I quit (he was of the five storeys in North Ken generation) and told him that as there was no prospect that I would ever, ever, ever be able to buy even a one-bedroom flat on my salary, I was leaving. That was in 1999. God knows how my poor replacement is doing.